Coyote Ridge FarmsWelcome To Our Rural Blog

As many of you know, Carol & I have been toying with the idea of putting a commercial dairy [back] on the farm as a business enterprise.  The girls (Carol and daughter Madison) have been milking goats on a small-scale for a few years now.  Last year we even tried milking the farm’s 16 yr old Scottish Highlander cow – we didn’t get too far, as it was obvious our old cow couldn’t produce enough milk for both her calf (Mac) and us.  We’ve even tried milking sheep.  These animals have all been milked by hand – no machines.  We do have milker units and a small vacuum pump, but decided our dairy critters didn’t produce enough milk to warrant the effort and expense of cleaning the equipment everyday.  Hands are easy to wash.

The other day, Carol started a 2# batch of goat’s milk Cheddar Cheese.  Well, after a day of pressing and flipping, flipping and pressing, it is air drying and doing fine.  We made it with our homemade Danish Press.

In fact, it is looking gorgeous as it is drying.  A rind is starting to form.  As you can see, it is now a beautiful color.

Cheddar Cheese

We let it set on a small, bamboo, cheese-mat, so that air can get to the underside and cover the top with cheese cloth (to keep off dust and such).  The cheese wheel needs to be flipped several times a-day for the first week.  After it is sealed and aging, it will need to be turned weekly until it is ready (2-6 months).

To start with… I thought that our Monday-Tuesday ‘snow storm’ was going to be more than it was.  Yes, we got a bunch of snow.  Yes, we got the wind.  But no blizzard-like conditions – maybe next time.

Tuesday evening was a little rough to be out in, but not enough to keep me home.  I traveled to Benson, MN to take part in a focus group discussion, hosted by Action Media, a consulting company out of the Metro.  It was concerning the Chippewa 10% Project.  Chippewa 10% Project’s goals are to help farmers realize and participate in conservation efforts that are not only good for water quality, but also are profitable to the land owner.  They believe that there can be a solid link between environmentally-friendly farming systems and profitability.   The program is called Profits From Perennials.

These Sunday morning goat babies seem to be more the rule than the exception.  Shortly after Carol dropped Madison off at the church for Sunday School, she came running into the house telling me she needs towels because Crooked Horn has a new baby on the ground.  She grabbed a towel and I followed with a couple more.

Mama giving new baby Celeste some love.

Crooked Horn’s baby was almost dry.  She looked to be 20-30 minutes old already.  Carol named the little doeling Celeste.  Since the mother’s belly was pretty good sized yet, we thought she might have another kid, but nope.  Celeste was the only one.  So far, both mother and doeling are doing pretty good.

Wha?  Check-out this video from the Brits., at Yeo Valley.  The Sustainable Farming movement is gaining momentum.

Here’s the deal.  When we started farming 3 years ago, we had no idea it would be cool (too bad the word ‘cool’ isn’t cool any more… right?).  Who ever thought that farming would be the in thing?  I sure didn’t.

Be sure to share this video.  Just mouse-over the “Share/Save” below and choose your social media.  It’s that easy.  Enjoy!  Yeo Valley!

Checkout the behind the scenes of the making of the video and why they did it. 
Look behind the scenes

When I was out and about, checking fences in the cattle’s 40 acre winter pasture, I got a call from Carol.  She thought she could use a little help with a goat that was in the ‘L’ pasture.  It seems as though a young goat doe was giving birth and she wasn’t comfortable continuing to butcher chickens while this young goat was birthing.  With the alert fresh, I headed back to the place.  I did tell her I was approx. ½ mile away [and on-foot] so I would/could not get back to the barn immediately.

When I got to the barn, Carol was on the phone.  Daughter Madison was quick to announce, from the birthing pen, that we now had a new baby goat on the ground – a little boy.

Our newest little guy.

Our goats produce more milk than we can drink and/or sell so we learned how to make cheese.  In this video, Madison, our 12 year old shows how to make fresh, home-made Mozzarella cheese from fresh, raw, goat milk.

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This is from Madison’s 4-H project on cheese making. She went all the way to the Minnesota State Fair with her cheese making project, where she got a blue ribbon for her efforts.

I made some editing mistakes, but if you notice them, you really don’t need this video to teach you how to make cheese.  This video is simply to show how simple the process is.  Enjoy!  Here is the updated video

Here is a photo of Madison and her cheese-making information board that she made as a school science-fair project, last year.

Madison's Science-fair Project

Some of you know that Carol grew up as a ‘Townie‘.  With that said, more folks know her as a farm gal.  But being on the farm for only 2 years, there are many experiences left to explore.

The last 2 days, Carol has found herself outside the ring of a couple local-ish livestock auctions, looking for goats & chickens.  It seems we are selling more livestock and poultry directly to our customers than we think we can replace sustainably.  It’s a good position to be in [business-wise] but we want all of our customers (present and future) to be able to buy the meat they want and still have a good selection in which to do so.  So, Carol has been looking primarily for more meat goats as well as a dairy goat or two… the last few weekends, we have been selling-out of raw goat milk too.

Carol knew what to do.  She started canning jam.  She had a few flats of strawberries and some stalks of rhubarb that needed to be preserved so she made 9½ pints of strawberry-blackberry jam, and the same amount of strawberry-rhubarb jam.  She then made some cheddar cheese from our raw goat milk.

I, on the other hand, went outside in between rain showers to do a little of this, then a little of that.  One of the tasks was to pound a single post in the vineyard.  Carol and I decided it was time to reinvest some of our time back into the grapes.  We want to string high-tensile wire between the posts for the vines to cling to.  We’re hoping to have better luck with the grapes this year.  Last year we were hit by hail.  The storm took the vines down to the ground.

I received a call this morning. It was a gentleman who identified himself as Mark, from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR)  The main topic, being the raw milk issue in Minnesota, which is just now making it to the national new services.

This is the 2nd interview I have participated in with MPR.  The first being in May… again on the subject of raw milk.  Today’s interview focused on the reaction that we have seen from our raw milk customers.  As I told Mark, Carol and I have not seen an increase or decrease of our raw milk sales, nor have we heard any concern from customers with regards the general safety and/or hazards of raw milk.  I told the MPR reporter that many people have yet to hear about the raw milk issue(s) of the Hartmann farm that has been in the news lately.